first off, i love photo, so i'm always happy to get someone else involved in my favorite vice. as for any useful information i can give, that's always a little dodgy, but here goes:any 35mm camera can shoot B&W film, so don't bother buying a manual camera or anything fancy until you know if you really want one. likewise, pretty much any photo finisher can develop your film for you, though it pays to shop around your neighborhood to find someone with good quality and a good price. you're not going to get "one-hour" type of service, though, unless you use film that they can print on color paper and i don't recommend that because i hate the reddish hue your prints will have...but that's just me.the best way to get cheap film is to buy a lot of it at once or to buy bulk-loaded film (film that is put into reused cannisters rather than in "kodak" style packaging.) i often buy my film from freestyle http://www.freestylephoto.biz/ and find them to be fairly cheap, really quick and easy to deal with. they have great clearance deals, too!a great place to learn about photo without having to pay a lot is to go to your local community college and either take a class or show "polite" interest and chat some people up. they can give you tons of help, if they're a mind to. for me, the joy of photo is in the printing, not the shooting, and a community college is the cheapest way to have access to good quality darkroom supplies to learn the skills and to be a part of a creative and collaborative environment. as for books, my favorite "beginners" manual is by henry horenstein, _black and white photography: a basic manual_, but if you don't want to learn the technical process, you can develop your eye by just looking at a lot of photos you like and figuring out what it is about them that you like.man, i do ramble on!good luck!annette

you can make some super cool mobiles with tinker toys...and it's a fun little puzzle to get the visual (and actual weight) balance right...of course, that's pretty much just the same thing as playing with them.

thanks! but, to be fair, i'm on holiday this week. i don't USUALLY stay out past 3 on a school night.a.oh, and for the other nice folks who showed interest, i'm ready to rumble on the sell or trade...keeping it on the downlow until i make peace with the copyright gods...

depending on how long you plan to be there and whether or not you have a friend with a truck, you can get a sheet or a couple of sheets of sheetrock or particle board and put them up against the wall covered, like giant bulletin boards. i did this holding the piece in place with a heavy base and my couch leaned up against it and it lasted without a worry for a year...though you have to be able to get it home and up without incident. that's where the friend with the truck comes in.

it might be too late for you if you've already committed to another editor, but the new version of dreamweaver interacts with fireworks which has been updating to do pretty much everything that photoshop does now. at least, that's what they say. i'm still photoshop all the way, baby.anyway, just thought i would share...they've really made some amazing upgrades at macromedia...annette

if i consign things, i don't need one, right? and if someone happens to give me a few bucks for something i make, well, that's just a random thing...and if i sell something from my website? what is the "line" that i cross that means i need to get a license and deal with sales tax and all that official stuff?sorry if this is too basic a question, but a good reference to a book or article would be really helpful to me.thanks!annette

yeah, i haven't actually been satisfied with any of the filter results. i've been magic wanding and color filling. then outlining by hand to make the blanks. i like to do things the hard way, i guess.a.

lothruin, maybe your secret is better than mine! we should share. i keep thinking there is probably an easier way to do it, but it's sort of fun, in a pain-staking photoshop way, so i keep on churning them out. the "done" paint-by-numbers are the easy part, though. it's the "blank" ones that take forever...and i haven't been able to figure out how to make solid transfers from them. they look GREAT on notecards and stuff, but the lines aren't heavy enough to make a good iron on. i'm going to work on that today, since i'm on holiday. i think i'm going to have to have different "blanks" for paper and for tshirts because the heavy lines are SO aesthetically unpleasing on paper, but seem necessary for fabric...a.